various artists

The Ballad Of Shirley Collins

earth recordings

cd + dvd

Released:
23rd Mar 2018

£15.99

pink lp + download

Released:
23rd Mar 2018

£17.99

this soundtrack to the great English folk singer’s biopic – though diverse – showcases just a fraction of the facets that make up an extraordinary career by anyone’s standards.

The story proves itself to be something of a time-travelling, Transatlantic road-movie of sorts, utilising a motherlode of archive audio to recount the tale of her seminal 1959 song-collecting trip around America’s Deep South. As well as these songs, there are more recent offerings; a home recording of Shirley’s sister Dolly Collins, & a BBC session from 1958, “Eight Five Spiritual”, which gets its first release, some 60 years after it was recorded. Granted intimate access to recording sessions for Shirley’s first album of new recordings in almost four decades, what emerges is a meditative & carefully textured piece of portraiture. “One of the great voices in British folk music” – The Guardian.

Tracklist

"All I Ever Wanted"

Shirley Collins - Calvary Hill

Ishman Williams & The Williams Singers – Got On My Travelling Shoes

“Do You Want Me To Start, Alan"

Texas Gladden - I Never Will Marry

Sid Hemphill and Lucius Smith - Come on Boys, Let's go to the Ball

Horton Barker - A Rich Irish Lady

Ian Kearey – The Poor Drowned Sailor

Sidney Hemphill Carter - Pharoah

“I Used To Could Sing"

Outtake (London 1959)

"Theres Never Been A Merry England"

Andy Hemsley and Hastings Jack in the Green - Seeds of Love

N.J Brothers & The United Sacred Harp Musical Association - Calvary

Lucius Smith - Make Lulu Behave Herself

Ruby Vass - Single Girl, Married Girl

“I Can’t Really Forget Them"

George Stoneman - Sally Anne

Michael J York & Ossian Brown - The Cloud House / Cyclobe - Son Of Sons of Light / George Collins – Dolly